Consomme Flavor
by Tiia Nachos
Summary: One-shot based on the British TV Show "The adventures of Merlin". Takes place during season two. Merlin tries to convince Arthur that the future Queen of Camelot is not what she appears to be, and failing miserably. Arthur on the other hand is having a minor crab problem. Wait, Crab? - First try at a humorous fanfic, possibly failing at it. Anyway, reads are always appreciated.


**Consomme Flavor**

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**Disclaimer: **I own no characters, though I wish I did.

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Two weeks had passed since the Lady Katrina had come to Camelot.  
In those two short weeks she had already won a place for herself in King Uther's cold heart of stone.  
That fact alone was enough reason for a certain suspicious warlock to be even more vary of her.  
It wasn't so much anything she had said that could make one's skin crawl; indeed, to anyone who didn't pay too much of attention,

the Lady Katrina was a very gracious being.  
Merlin, however, did pay attention. All he could see whenever he looked at Camelot's, god forbid, future Queen was a lustful impure creature.  
It was all there. The stench, her overly nicely done bed, her servant whom had an appendage most wouldn't, those greedy and beady brown eyes of her.  
Everything about her screamed troll, with capitals.

That the King didn't see it came as no surprise to Merlin; when had the King ever been able to see the truth as it was?  
Which is why Merlin was now heading to see the one person who might consider his words instead of just ignoring them. Arthur.

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_In Arthur's chambers_  
Arthur was pacing. No fault in that, except for the fact that Arthur never paced.  
In this case though, he had all the right reasons to pace.  
Admittedly, the Lady Katrina seemed to make his father happy so naturally Arthur should feel pleased about it. He felt far from pleased, though.  
"Enter," Arthur said absentmindedly to the person knocking at his door.  
Arthur would be lying if he said he wasn't surprised to see his manservant open the door with a soft creaking sound.

'Merlin _knocks_ before he enters? Now I have seen _everything_!' "What do you want," he asked in a cut-to-the-chase kind of voice.

Admittedly, it wasn't Merlin's fault he was in a foul mood, but he couldn't help taking out his irritation towards the one person in Camelot he felt comfortable enough to do so.  
"I wanted to talk to you about something," Merlin said hesitantly. Now _that_ sparked an interest with the cranky Crown Prince.

Not that Merlin wanted to talk, - 'cause seriously, when doesn't he want to talk? - but rather his obvious discomfort.

"So..," Arthur said slowly. "What's eating you?" Merlin shook his head, and shrugged. "I don't know how to say it, but.."  
"But?" Arthur asked helpfully. "It's the lady Katrina, she's," Merlin interrupted himself.  
Merlin shrugged once again and braced himself for what was surely to come.  
"She's a troll."

.

Arthur stared at Merlin. Merlin stared at Arthur. For a few seconds the world had gone quiet.

Then, Arthur seemed to come out of his stupor and said the most intelligent thing he could have under the circumstances; "What?"

"You heard what I said. Katrina's a troll; a sleeping-under-bridges kind of troll."

Arthur snorted distasteful. "You can't be serious. Get out of here."

Merlin's eyebrows crinkled, his eyes narrowed. "Why won't you believe me? She's a troll, she really is!"

It was obvious that the prince neither believed nor listened to what he was saying. Which was something that under normal circumstances could put Merlin off on edge.

Uncharacteristically, in this instance, it made him furious. Merlin felt his body heat increase in temperature, his blood boiling.

An oozing pain flickered behind his eyeballs and the colors of the room wore away. The only thing he could see was a light blue shine in the otherwise pitch black room.

The pain increased and he opened his mouth to scream; no sound escaped, his tongue laid still.

A flicker of yellow light set in motion passed through his shining orbs and made its way, headed towards the faint blue light a few feet away.

The light made its impact, and the blue light vanished. Merlin gasped, falling onto his knees and colors were slowly returning back to normal.

Drops of sweat, or maybe tears, dripping from his chin, Merlin raised his gaze to stare at the pile of smokey clothes that was laying across the room.

_Arthur!_

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(Arthur's POV)

For all the time that I've known Merlin, I've never been able to figure him out.

I've always known that he was more than what 'meets the eye', but I never could pinpoint what exactly was so different about him.

Admittedly, he's never been wrong whenever he's said that magic's at play.

I honestly wanted to believe him without a moment's thought, but this troll-business seemed too far fetched, too good to be true.

Despite the fact that I could totally see that the lady Katrina wasn't all that she claimed to be, I still wouldn't let myself doubt her sincerity; for father's sake.

Suddenly, my chambers seemed to adopt a soiled dark hue and shadows that certainly wasn't there before appeared out of nowhere.

I turned around, with the intention to find out whether Merlin could see the same thing as I did or if I was simply hallucinating.

I stopped in my tracks; shocked. Merlin was _glowing_. I tried to speak, but honestly couldn't find the right words to say.

The only think I could do was stare at the figure of my manservant who currently was writhing in pain. The faint hue of gold in his eyes locked with mine, and I yelped.

Princes doesn't yelp, officially anyway, but I admit it; I was _frightened_. A yellow light darted towards me, trapped me in what couldn't be called pain; it was pure _agony._

I couldn't see it - but I could feel it_ - _and I knew that I was changing in ways I was never supposed to change in. The first thing that changed was my nose.

It's hard to describe the feeling of how it seemed to just shrink back into my face. My ears was the next things to go.

My arms retracted back into my body, my fingers changed shape and color. Twin set of legs appeared, and the chambers seemed to grow.

I quickly established the fact that it wasn't my chambers that had grown bigger; it was I who had grown _smaller_.

My several sizes too large clothes buried me and I felt as though I was about to choke. Then, a giant hand made its way towards me.

It was pure instinct that made me reach out to pinch at the intruding limb. The hand quickly withdrew, and a faint yelp of pain could be heard.

A few moments later the hand made its way back towards me with another just as unwelcome as the first one, and before I could decide whether to pinch at them to escape, the hands had grabbed me and raised me in the air.

I felt like I was floating, I felt scared and absolutely nauseated. My claws flung helplessly. Giant blue orbs stared at me, and I quickly deduced that the orbs was a set of eyes.

As soon as I had noticed that the giant creature currently holding me had a set of abnormally large ears, I realized that the giant creature was none other than my good-for-nothing manservant.

_'Could this day possibly get worse?'_

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(Third person's POV)

Merlin stared at Arthur, not sure of what to say. Arthur stared back, not able to say anything at all. No one was saying anything, the silence laid thick in the chambers.

"You're... a crab," Merlin suddenly exclaims. 'Oh? And I who had almost figured that out all by myself', Arthur thinks sarcastically.

It was in favor of Merlin that the prince-turned-into-crab couldn't talk, otherwise Arthur would've 'bitten his head off', figuratively speaking.

"Just, stay here," Merlin says and proceeds to leave the room in such a haste as though his behind was on fire.

'Not like I planned to go anywhere looking like this, you dollop-head,' Arthur thinks not amused in the slightest, with a nonexistent eyebrow raised.

Arthur turned his head to look around in his chambers, perceiving it bigger than it usually was certainly felt odd.

He raised to stand up on wobbly legs, failing the first two times. Arthur looked over his body. 'So, I have 3 legs on each side, six in total,' he concludes in a daze.

'And, my color seem to be.. dark brown? Boy, this is weird,' he thinks and takes a few wobbly steps on his cupboard, leaning over the edge. 'Was the cupboard always this big? It feels like I'm on a mountain! Now, how to get down from here...,' he ponders and notices a satin ribbon lying next to him.

'Nah, that would never work,' he thinks dismissively. When no other idea popped in his head, Arthur figured that it was worth a shot, and grabbed the ribbon, twisting it a few rounds around a glass standing on the cupboard.

With a push, the glass fell over, and Arthur rolled it towards the edge of the cupboard, resting the glass against a piece of wood.

He then proceeded to roll out the satin 'rope', swallowed a few times, and swung over the edge. Turns out that wasn't the best of ideas he could have come up with.

While he wasn't trapped on top of the cupboard any longer, he was now trapped holding the 'rope', his legs wriggling, and could neither get back up nor get down to the floor. He was stuck, and he was royally screwed.

'Just you wait 'til I get my hands back, Merlin, and the first thing they'll find use for is to strangle you,' he grumbled to himself, desperately trying to hold onto the 'rope' while his strength was slowly giving up on him.

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_Meanwhile in Gaius's chamber_

"Eh... Gaius?" Merlin creaked the door open and peeked inside the study. "Yes, what is it now," Gaius asked and appeared in the room.

Merlin stepped inside the study, closing the door behind him. "You better sit down for this," he told Gaius and headed towards the table.

"What did you do now," Gaius asked, an uneasy feeling in his gut. "Well," Merlin began while he sat down onto an empty chair. "It was like this.."

Merlin told Gaius everything that had happened in Arthur's chambers, leaving out nothing. Gaius didn't interrupt Merlin while Merlin was telling his story.

He sat back quietly and listened closely, in an effort to not miss out on a single word.

When Merlin had finished his story, the two of them looked sadly at each other in silence.

Gaius sighed. Not a day that goes by without something like this happening.

"Ouch, what was that for," Merlin exclaimed when Gaius hit him over the head.

"That was for making me worry needlessly," Gaius replied and then told Merlin to look for a cure in the book he'd kept hidden in his room.

_._

_Meanwhile with Arthur_

Arthur tried with all the might he could muster to keep his hold onto the 'rope' when he felt how his grip started to lessen. 'Oh no, oh no, oh no,' he chanted in a frenzy while he kept slipping further down.

Arthur clenched harder at the 'rope', unfortunately the ribbon snapped in two, and for a nanosecond he was floating in midair.

Then, gravity won and he fell down, landing hard onto his back. 'Good thing my shell is as hard as a rock,' he thought slightly dizzy.

Arthur managed to roll over onto his stomach, and slowly stood up. 'I can't stay in here all day,' Arthur reasoned and headed towards the door.

He left the chambers, figuring that a short stroll around the castle wouldn't hurt anybody and run down the corridor, taking a few leaps ever so often.

He entered another corridor and proceeded to run down the corridor in the same fashion he'd done with the other.

After another ten to twenty corridors later, he figured that it would probably be best to head back to his chambers before Merlin comes back. Arthur turned his head left and right, trying to decide which way he'd come from.

'Ok, now I'm lost in my _own_ castle, typical, just bloody perfect,' Arthur grumbled to himself and kept walking down the corridor while trying to keep himself out of anyone's sight.

Sniffing the air, a faint scent of aroma filled his sinuses. 'Food would certainly be nice', Arthur thought when his stomach growled and headed towards the door to the kitchen.

'What does a crab eat, anyway? Fish? Kelp? Certainly not bread.' Leaving his musings at that, Arthur then put his entire body-weight towards the door and attempted to push the heavy door open.

After lots of inaudible swearing, many futile attempts and even more swearing, Arthur finally managed to creak the door open and let himself into the kitchen.

Arthur took a few deep breaths, running his claw over his brow wiping off sweat and looked around in search of something suitable to eat.

His gaze settled on the head chef who was cooking something that smelled delicious on the stove.

Deciding that whatever it was the chef was cooking, he wanted to have a few bites of that and with as much pomposity one could have while being a tiny crab, he headed towards the chef.

Arthur stopped, standing right next to the chef. 'Ahem', he said. The chef didn't show any indication that she'd noticed the prince's presence.

'Hello, I want some food! Can you hear me?' Still no reaction. 'Oh, right, crabs cannot talk,' Arthur realized. 'Then, how can I get her attention?'

Thinking hard, a light bulb appeared over Arthur's head. 'It worked with Merlin, so it might as well work with her,' Arthur reasoned and pinched hard at the chef's big toe.

The chef yelled, and the steak in the pan flung across the room, landing across the face of another chef. The head chef grabbed a hold of her aching foot and noticed the crab on the floor.

"Get out of my kitchen, you leper," the head chef shrieked and swung a pan she'd been holding in her hands at the prince.

'Leper? I'm a _crab_, you blind fool!' Arthur began to run as fast as he could towards the exit when pots and pans was starting to rain down on him.

'If I manage to survive this, that chef will be fired first thing tomorrow,' he grumbled angrily and slipped into a pot in search of protection against the overzealous chef.

_._

**The End**

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AN:

_I'm not sure how I came up with the plot, exactly._

_I think it all started when I re-watched the live action movie Death Note and saw Light/L eating a bag of Consomme flavored chips._

_Deciding that the title of this one-shot would be "Consomme Flavor", I began thinking of ways to make the story go hand in hand with the title._

_Since consomme refers to meat, I thought, why not turn Arthur into an animal?_

_The reason why Arthur got turn into a crab specifically, is because I kept thinking of the scene with Sebastian and the chef Louis from The Little Mermaid._

_That's how this one-shot came to be, and although it progressed in a way I had not foreseen, it was still fun to write._

_Ok, enough of that. Read, review. You know the drill. Even if you thought this one-shot sucked, which it probably did, you could at least let me now that, ye?_


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